Bell Shoals Gets New Pastor

BRANDON — Bell Shoals Baptist Church has named a North Carolina preacher as its new senior pastor, the church announced Monday.

The Rev. Stephen Rummage learned he had been tapped to lead the megachurch Sunday night when church officials offered him the job via Webcast. He received a 99.8 percent affirmative vote from the congregation, church officials said.

Rummage, who is married and has a son, is the pastor of the Hickory Grove Baptist Church in Charlotte, N.C. He expects to deliver his first sermon as senior pastor at Bell Shoals on June 28.

Nearly one year ago, Bell Shoals' senior pastor, the Rev. Forrest Pollock, and his 13-year-old son, Preston, were killed when their airplane crashed in North Carolina.

Pollack, 44, was piloting the Piper Cherokee when they ran into bad weather and slammed into a mountain. They had been heading to Little Rock, Ark. Three months later, the church's pastor of music and worship ministries, Simeon Nix, died of a heart attack.